Harry half-smiled and ran the fingertips of his right hand down her cheek, remembering as he did so the unbearable softness of her flesh. If only it were all as simple as what had happened that night. If only the ghost of his dead son and her abandoned lover did not stand between them, along with the small matter of more years than he cared to count. Then almost anything would seem possible. But to pretend such things could be set aside was the first step along a path leading to greater desolation than he already felt. He had pursued one fantasy in vain. He knew better than to chase another.
“What are you going to do, Harry?”
“Oh, this and that. The daily round. You know. Get on with life.”
“Is sitting here in this mouldering necropolis what you call getting on with life?”
“I suppose so. Well, these people are as real as anyone else in this city, aren’t they? Or they were. And since time is just a dimension like any other, that means they still are, doesn’t it? Time is the only thing separating us. Maybe if I sit here long enough … it won’t.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“I know quite a lot about some of them,” Harry went on, undaunted. “See that marble sarcophagus down there on the right?”
“Yes. What about it?”
“It’s the tomb of Princess Sophia, daughter of George the Third. She had the sort of repressed royal upbringing you’d expect, then fell in love with a court equerry, General Garth. Got pregnant the only time they slept together. Gave birth in secret. Never told her father. Never lived with Garth. The son turned out a worthless scrounger. She went blind in old age and lived as a solitary recluse. Died nearly a hundred and fifty years ago. But nothing changes in human nature, does it? There are plenty of Garths in this world.
In a way, you’re sitting next to one. Perhaps he got his comeuppance too. The guidebook doesn’t say.”
“For God’s sake, Harry ‘
“Don’t worry. They say things get easier to bear. With time.”
“I’d like to help.”
“You can.” He swivelled round on the step to look at her. “Go home, Donna. Get on with your life. Start enjoying it again. Sign yourself up for a million-dollar book deal. Globescope, the full story. Should be a bestseller. Might even change the future. There’s more chance of changing that than the past.”
“But what about the past?”
“Forget it. It’s over.”
“This isn’t the Harry I met in Chicago talking.”
“No. Because I’m not the Harry you met in Chicago. Or the Harry who was happily frittering away his life just six weeks ago, unaware he had a son lying comatose in hospital.”
“So what’s Harry now?”
“A man with his eyes open. Looking into a mirror. And not much liking the view.”
“Well I’m looking over your shoulder. And I don’t reckon the view’s so bad.”
Harry managed a rueful grin. “Thanks.”
“When all this is over… why don’t you fly out to California… and stay a while?”
That’s an invitation you might come to regret.”
“I don’t think so. What’s the answer?”
The answer’s maybe. You mightn’t think it was such a good idea if it came to the point.” He leant over and kissed her gently on the cheek. “Let’s wait and see.”
Harry walked Donna to Kensal Green station and waited with her on the southbound platform. She was heading for Heathrow and a flight to Copenhagen. Margrethe Hammelgaard was owed an explanation. Perhaps by Harry most of all. But he was happy to leave such matters to Donna. He had not even contacted Athene Tilson, as he had promised to do. What she had made of the affair he could not summon the energy to contemplate. The same applied to every other ramification of the Globescope scandal. His part in its exposure had left him drained and directionless, aware of little save the mockery David’s death had made of his grand pretensions. He knew he had succumbed to self-pity. But he also knew that was preferable to accepting the pity of others. When he kissed
Donna goodbye, saw the doors slide shut behind her and watched the train accelerate out of the station, he was certain he would never take up her invitation. If he looked in the mirror now, there would be no-one smiling over his shoulder. It was not as he would have wanted. But it was as he had chosen.
He walked slowly out of the station and stopped by the entrance. Foxglove Road lay to the right, the cemetery straight ahead, the Stonemasons’ Arms to the left. After a lengthy delay for the lighting of another cigarette, he turned left, quickening his pace as he went.
FIFTY-FOUR
December had always been Harry’s mois noir. Dark, dreary and dominated by the familic frenzy of Christmas, it contained all the elements of Englishness he most hated. He had often suspected that the disruption of normality it entailed was a conspiracy to turn contented loners such as himself into suicidal depressives. His usual policy was to ignore it as far as humanly possible.
This December was different, however. It needed no conspiracy to lower his spirits. With no job to distract him, no responsibilities to discharge and no future worth looking forward to, he sank with little resistance into general despondency and occasional despair. The media hounding of Byron Lazenby largely passed him by. He glimpsed a harassed-looking photograph of him on a cover of Time, with the caption A PREDICTION TO DIE FOR: Globescope’s Self-Destruct Message for the Millennium. And he was aware, because Mrs. Tandy told him, that the Fleet Street Sundays were delving gleefully into the affair, even to the extent of door-stepping Iris in Wilmslow. But she was saying little. And absolutely nothing about her late son’s natural father. So Harry was safe from the news-hounds, if not from the black dog of hopelessness.
The creature was still on his trail when Christmas arrived with all its goodwill-laden inevitability. Mrs. Tandy departed, as was her wont, for a ten-day sojourn with her niece in learning ton Harry customarily spent the holiday with his mother in Swindon and could think of no acceptable reason to make this year an exception. He would have preferred to pass the festivities in glum solitude at Kensal Green, but to explain such a preference to his mother was quite simply unthinkable, so to 37 Falmouth Street, Swindon, the house he had been born in and sometimes feared he might die in, he obediently travelled on Christmas Eve.
It was unclear whether his mother noticed any deterioration in his appearance or state of mind. The plaster having recently been removed from his right hand, Harry was spared the need to explain away a broken thumb. He maintained a jovial front to the best of his ability, retreating to the Glue Pot Inn even more eagerly than usual, but no more frequently than she was used to. Globescope and the name David John Yenning meant nothing to her. And Harry was determined they never would. A scapegrace son was only what she had long known she had. But a dead grandson was a trick she did not deserve to have life play on her.
Three days after Christmas, Harry was soaking gently at the bar of the Glue Pot, trying to achieve the level of mild intoxication he deemed necessary for an afternoon of his mother’s undiluted company, when just about the last person he ever expected to see on the premises walked through the door.
“Zohra! This is…”
“A surprise?”
“Yes. But a pleasant one, believe me.” It was true. Zohra, who he thought of as a friend rather than the wife a legal fiction declared her to be, was looking not merely well but radiant. She had changed her hairstyle, swapped her glasses for contact lenses and acquired a more adventurous wardrobe since moving to Newcastle. The plum-coloured coat and matching Tudor hat she was wearing were outrageously elegant for their present surroundings. But the confidence to wear them was what stood out. She was no longer the insecure young woman Harry had rescued from deportation. She had gained a belief in herself along with a British passport. And it showed. “What, er, brings you to Swindon?”
“You do, Harry. Would you like to come out to tea with me? There’s something we need to discuss.”
&nb
sp; Tea was taken beside a roaring fire in the cosy surroundings of the Castle and Ball Hotel, Marlborough. The smart little car Zohra drove there in was a further surprise to Harry. Clearly, life was treating her rather better than him. But he had never been prone to envy. He felt pleased for her. Doubly so because of the help he had once given her. It was much-needed proof that at least some things he did worked out for the best.
“Your mother’s never liked me, has she?” said Zohra as she filled Harry’s cup. “She looked daggers at me when you told her we were going out for the afternoon.”
“She’s never understood why I married you, that’s all. I’ve tried to explain, of course, but marriage other than for lifelong union and the procreation of children is an alien concept to her.”
“In a sense, I agree with her.”
“Well, so do I, but…”
“As a matter of fact, it’s what I want to discuss. I’ve met somebody. A new junior in the practice. He … well… he wants to marry me. And I … want to marry him.” She smiled at Harry nervously, as if he were a guardian whose approval she was seeking, though his co-operation was actually what she required. “You and I have lived apart for more than three years now. It should be relatively straightforward to… take the necessary steps.”
“Divorce, you mean?”
“Well, yes. I’d make all the arrangements, of course. I’d make sure you weren’t put to any trouble or expense. It’s only a formality.”
Zohra was right, of course. It was only a formality. He had been her saviour. But salvation was no longer required. It was understandable. It was natural. But still he could not help wishing it had happened sooner or later any time but now, when further proof of his expendability was the last thing he needed.
“I’ll never forget what you did for me, Harry. I’ve told Neil all about it. You’ll like him, you really will. And we’ll stay in touch, won’t we? This won’t change anything.”
“No. I don’t suppose it will.”
“So … you’ll help speed things along?”
“Oh yes. Don’t worry, Zohra. I won’t cause you any trouble at all.”
In the wake of Zohra’s visit, Harry found it difficult not to think more than just another year was ending in his life. Events had prodded him into looking forward as well as back. And the road seemed empty in both directions. On New Year’s Eve, he walked out to the house in Holyrood Close that Claude Yenning had hired him to paint back in the long-ago summer of 1960. It looked remarkably unchanged, except that the garden was more overgrown and the wooden doors and windows had been replaced with double-glazed UPVC units. They had no need of a painter now. His day was done.
Harry saw in the New Year with desperate gusto at the Glue Pot and spent the first day of it too hung over to speak much, let alone concentrate on the challenges awaiting him back in London. First among them would be finding a job. There was certainly nothing like economic necessity to take a fellow out of himself, as Harry knew from experience. He assured his mother it would be a top priority. She looked sceptical, but still gave him a farewell breakfast next morning that would have been sufficient to sustain a railway navvy for a week.
“You’ve been looking pasty to me ever since you arrived, Harold. Is something ailing you?”
“Age, Mother. That’s all.”
“You should take better care of yourself.”
“What for?” Harry was tempted to ask. But instead he summoned a reassuring smile. “I will. From now on.”
The man sitting opposite Harry on the train to London spent the journey immersed in a newspaper. Harry found himself studying the articles on whichever page was folded towards him. To his horror, he spotted the word Globescope in a headline presented for his inspection just after Didcot and could not refrain from reading on. It turned out to be a speculative piece on whether Project Sybil’s dire predictions for the year 2050 should be taken seriously. Expert opinion was evidently divided on the point. Byron Lazenby, it seemed, was not the only forecaster who believed in telling people what they wanted to hear. Which merely served to underline the pointlessness of David’s death. The only comfort it gave Harry was to remind him he would not be around in 2050 to find out how right or wrong David, Donna and the rest of them had been. Time would tell. But it would not tell him.
It was a bank holiday, the last in the long Christmas and New Year sequence. The Stonemasons’ was open all day on the strength of it. Stopping off there on his way home, Harry found himself staying longer than he had planned. It did not matter unduly. Mrs. Tandy was not due back from learning ton until Wednesday. He could arrive as late as he chose and in whatever condition suited his mood.
It was, in fact, gone four o’clock on a cold and already frosty afternoon when he slid his key into the lock at 78 Foxglove Road. He stepped into the passage and dumped his bag, then turned back to close the door, resolving in his mind to spend no more lunch times that stretch till dusk in the Stonemasons’. They were no way to initiate the overdue process of pulling himself together. He would not continue January the way he had begun it. That much was
The door flew open as he moved towards it and a figure burst into the passage, flinging him back against the wall and pinning him there, a hand grasping him by the collar of his shirt, a knee wedged between his legs. Which he saw first the gun pointing at him from such close range that the barrel was blurred, or beyond it the sweating contorted face of Byron Lazenby was hard to tell. But suddenly he felt stone-cold sober and very very frightened.
“Hi, Norm,” said Lazenby in a breathless rasp. “Or is it Harry?”
“I … Look, for God’s ‘
“Never mind that now. I have a more important question for you. A real brain-teaser.” Lazenby grinned and cocked the revolver. “Can you think of a single reason I mean a single goddam one why I shouldn’t blow your fucking head off?”
FIFTY-FIVE
They had moved awkwardly, like two tangled crabs, into Mrs. Tandy’s sitting room, knocking one of her Indian brass trays off the wall in the process. It had hit the floor with the noise of a clashing cymbal, convincing Harry for a strangely serene split-second that Lazenby had fired the gun. Death, it seemed, was like travelling on the tube: noisy but painless.
In reality, however, death was still only a threat, evident in the cold hard prod of a gun-barrel beneath his jaw. But the threat was real and horribly immediate. Lazenby had backed him up against the sofa, tightened his grip on his collar and repeated the question to which he could not seem to articulate any kind of answer.
“What do you say, Harry? I’m tempted oh so tempted to pull this trigger. Aren’t you going to try to convince me I shouldn’t?”
“Look, can’t we talk? I mean ‘
“We are talking. Not very persuasively in your case.”
“All right, all right.” Harry gulped, feeling the gun like a lump in his throat. “Let’s be reasonable. I hear… the law can’t touch you. Why change that? Why become … a wanted murderer?”
“Why?” Lazenby grinned. “For the satisfaction, you sonofabitch. Don’t you know what you did to me? I almost wish I was being prosecuted rather than eaten alive by the piranhas of every newspaper, magazine and TV current affairs show in the western world. My business has been bankrupted. My reputation’s been shredded. My entire life’s been taken apart. I’m public enemy numbers one, two, three and keep on counting. I don’t even get a chance to clear my name in court. All that’s down to you, Harry. So don’t ask me why. Tell me why not.”
“Because… you did it to yourself. You killed four people and got away with it. You wouldn’t… get away with this.”
“Don’t give me that crap. Everybody else thinks I’m guilty. Naturally. But you know I’m not.”
“You’re surely not trying to ‘
“To hell with this! I’ll give you the reason your brains aren’t already splattered over that wall over there. Because I want the truth, Harry. I want the goddam truth. Why did you do it to me? Just tel
l me. Just give me the full story and maybe if I’m sufficiently moved by your candour I’ll let you live.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lazenby had asked for the truth and Harry had spoken it. But it was not what Lazenby wanted to hear. His cold blue eyes bored into Harry’s, their unblinking message clear to see. He was in earnest. And there was no way out for either of them. “Honestly. I don’t. I stole the tape to stop you killing anybody else. To expose what you were doing. David Yenning was my son.”
“I heard all that from Ablett. I don’t want to hear it again. We both know you’re playing a deeper game. But I’m blowing the whistle. The game’s over.”
“Ablett? I don’t understand.”
“If you expected a slimeball like him to keep his mouth shut, you’re an idiot, which I don’t happen to think you are. He told me the lie you peddled them in Dallas about Hammelgaard’s dying message. About being Venning’s father. He told me everything. And I didn’t even have to hold a gun to his head to make him.”
“It wasn’t a lie.”
“Listen to me, Harry. Listen good. The world believes I commissioned four murders. And I can’t convince the world it’s wrong. But I know it is. Because I know I didn’t do it. I’m an innocent man. You and I are both well aware of that.”
“No. I’m not. This is ‘
“Your last chance. That’s what this is. I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll tell you what I’ve already figured out. It’s something to do with Slade, right? Something to do with higher dimensions. Hammel-gaard and Yenning researched them. Slade bragged about using them in his act. That’s the connection. It has to be. Nothing else fits. And I’ve done my research. You were in Copenhagen when Hammelgaard died and Slade was the last person to speak to
Yenning before he fell into a fatal coma. That’s on the record. Plus Slade was in Paris the day Mermillod got his. And you… well, where were you when Kersey breathed his last? Montreal, by any short stretch of the imagination? I know Slade was on stage here in London at the time. So it has to be you, doesn’t it?”
Out of the Sun Page 27